Books

5 Books That Turn Our Grumbling into Gratitude

Chosen by Dustin Crowe, author of “The Grumbler’s Guide to Giving Thanks: Reclaiming the Gifts of a Lost Spiritual Discipline.”

Simon Migaj / Unsplash

The Practice of Praise

Charles Spurgeon

Though Spurgeon’s 19th-century volume is the oldest on my list, it might be the most tweetable. Flip to any page, and you’ll find concise, whimsical words about the dangers of a grumbling spirit or God’s delight in our gratitude. Spurgeon teaches us how to instill daily praise and thanksgiving into our lives, whether we’re in a season of sorrow or a season of blessing.

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Ann Voskamp

Perhaps you’ve noticed more attention given to gratitude over the past decade, whether in your local bookstore or your social media feed each November. Here’s the book that helped jump-start that movement. With poetic prose, Voskamp takes the reader on a personal journey of observing God’s gifts all around us. As we learn to see God’s world with new, grateful eyes, it changes our perspective on everything else.

Hannah Coulter

Wendell Berry

Other books on this list might teach us to choose gratitude over grumbling, but this one helps us feel the beauty of a grateful life. Hannah Coulter is an account of one woman’s life as she looks back on belonging to a place and a people through love and loss, grief and gratitude. Through Hannah’s story, we see what it looks like to receive all of life as a gift.

Practicing Affirmation: God-Centered Praise of Those Who Are Not God

Sam Crabtree

Grumbling is rooted in seeing what we don’t like about something or someone rather than the good God might do through them. It grabs onto frustrating, annoying, or challenging circumstances. Once you step in, it’s easy to get stuck. But affirmation helps pull us loose by clinging to what’s commendable (Phil. 4:8). This book teaches us to consider God’s gracious work by affirming others, which cultivates the discipline of encouragement rather than criticism and complaint.

Thanksgiving: An Investigation of a Pauline Theme

David W. Pao

This volume, from InterVarsity Press’s excellent series New Studies in Biblical Theology, traces the theme of thanksgiving in Paul’s letters. It helpfully emphasizes the God-centeredness of thanksgiving. Grumbling is symptomatic of a deeper problem: ingratitude toward God. Many books on gratitude focus on the tangible blessings we should see and celebrate. But too often, they stop there. Pao reminds us that thanksgiving should lead us to love and worship the God who gives us all things.

Also in this issue

The costs of health care in America are staggering. Those blessed with the right insurance watch mind-boggling medical bills evaporate into the ether, as if by magic. But millions of others risk having their lives derailed by such bills, or they risk the life-threatening consequences of forgoing treatment because they could not begin to pay for it. The modern US system of insurance-based care began as a Christian invention to help the vulnerable, but today it often feels like a punitive system denying medicine to those who need it most. Our cover story this month asks: Can Christians once again find a better way?

Cover Story

Christians Invented Health Insurance. Can They Make Something Better?

Hope Is an Expectant Leap

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Our November Issue: An Ocean of Need

Paul’s Most Beloved Letter Was Entrusted to a Woman

Meet the TikTok Generation of Televangelists

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I Was a World Series Hero on the Brink of Suicide

We All Know Christ’s Dying Words. But Can We Define the ‘It’ That Is ‘Finished’?

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At Purple Churches, Pastors Struggle with Polarized Congregations

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Who Preaches on Politics? Most Pastors.

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Churches Search for Sounds of Heaven

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Creation Care Movement Takes Action with Solar Panels and Petitions

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Post-Election Civility Is Not Enough

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It’s Okay Not to Be Okay

Cultivating Chaos

Joy That Won’t Wither

How Churches Elevate and Protect Abusive Pastors

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A True Religion Does Three Things and Answers Four Questions

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Share the Gospel with Prisoners. Then Apply It to the System.

New & Noteworthy Fiction

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